WONDER.
~
Wonder of Wonders! The Secrets of the Rock; or, the Rock-Dove and Jay.
London: Sold by G. Terry...
1788.

First edition, rare. A delightful, if obscure, ornithological satire, presumably disguising a literary or academic controversy as yet unidentified. With a supporting cast of bat, owl, hawk, rook and crow, the poem centres on whether a particular bird is rock-dove or jay:

‘This is no Jay, no carrion bird:Such meekness, softness, sweetness, cadence!Such graceful gesture, tone and gradance!For Postulatum, Theme, or Theorem,I never knew a Dove come near him’. Not in Jackson. ESTC: BL, Cambridge, Bodley and Newberry only and a single copy of a 15-page issue of the same year (Duke).